This thesis is based on an exploration of human rights (in) South African education. In
order to do so, however, it has been necessary to explore the origins of the notion of
human rights in both its philosophical and legal senses. It covers the ways in which the
claim of an equality of all human beings has developed historically and the ways in
which they are articulated in the Universal Declaration of human rights and in the “new”
South African Constitution. However, the argument in this thesis is that human rights
tend to be generalised and universalised, and as such do not adequately address the ways
in which human rights are experienced in specific social formations and in the contexts of
particular people’s lives. In order to make human rights more specific and personal, I
apply a sociology of human rights using Stuart Hall’s “theory of articulation” and
demonstrate what this sociological analysis means in the context of South Africa under
apartheid. In addition, to prevent reifying social categories and privileging particular
types of human identity, I explore human rights under apartheid in relation to ‘race’,
gender and sexual orientation. Throughout, I point to ways in which these identities and
social categories interconnect with each and balance micro and macro approaches to an
analysis of apartheid.
Methodologically this thesis uses Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot’s approach of “portraiture”
in order to capture personal lives within a macro context and I provide accounts in this
respect of Nelson Mandela and Simon Nkoli. I have also used a combination of
quantitative and qualitative approaches in my investigation of experiences of human
rights in South African education. Teachers’ and learners’ questionnaires were conducted in schools in the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in South Africa between
1996 and 1998. In addition, individual interviews with Grade 9 teachers were conducted
and group interviews with Grade 9 learners in these schools were also done. Classroom
observations in three schools, one in each of the provinces, were also conducted, and
individual interviews with two gay learners also form part of the empirical data of this
study. A national survey of what human rights programmes were used by educational
institutions and organisations was also conducted. The thesis also contextualises the
sampled schools experiences within the post-apartheid dispensation in South Africa,
providing an account of how human rights are framed in South Africa generally and in
the South African educational system in particular. Approaches to human rights (in)
education are also covered, as are the principles of a human rights education. The
conclusions that I arrive at in this thesis are that there are interventions in regard to
human rights in South African education which tend to be located within legalistic and
integrated approaches. In addition, experiences of racism in the sampled schools are
prevalent within an assimilationist mode. In regard to sexual orientation, sex, gender and
sexuality are conflated but the provision of human rights in terms of sexual orientation
has had a positive impact on the sampled gay learners in this study. Finally, I argue that
the sociological approach to human rights is useful and generative and has enabled this
study to access an understanding of human rights in generalised macro terms and in
specific contexts of people’s experiences.

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en

en

dc.subject

Human rights

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human rights education

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human rights apartheid

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human rights in South African education

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race

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gender

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sexual orientation

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theory of articulation and portraiture

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dc.title

Human rights and the construction of identities in South African education